The Perfect Flower Bed : Even in a Small Space, a Little Work Will Yield Big Bursts of Color Year-round

Recently, I confessed to having rearranged my garden several times because things didn’t turn out as I’d hoped. I should admit, though, that I have one flower bed that did work out on the very first try. Not that it was planted that way, never to be meddled with again, but rather that it has always looked good from the day it was planted, about four years ago, and has accommodated seasonal changes and changes of heart with ease and grace.

It had a definite beginning: Two roses--’Double Delight’ and ‘Mon Cheri,’ my wife’s favorites--had to be a part of it. They became the anchors. Next, I had to figure out what ought to be there, what would go well with those two bright roses. Usually, in starting a bed, I simply plant whatever is sitting in pots in the backyard or at the nurseries that month. But this time, using colored pencils, I made primitive sketches.

Understand that I have had little practical experience with color. My 9-year-old daughter already knows more about color than I do. When people tell me that sitting down to plan a color scheme is beyond them, I can only admit that it seemed beyond me, too; but it was possible and, well, fun.

At first, I drew just blobs of color. Only when satisfied with that scheme were the forms and shapes of the plants added. I played it safe, not straying far from the deep-carmine red of the roses. I practically wore out the lead in the pink pencil. For the contrasting color, I settled on blue and bluish, being determined to plant delphiniums, which are shades of blue with an occasional deep violet.

White and gray for the foliage were used to break up the other colors in case they clashed and also to make the flower bed look less congested than it was actually going to be, since, as usual, I would be trying to fit far too much in one place. White and gray lend an airiness, like shafts of sunlight in a forest.

I didn’t want everything the same height; I wanted the drama of abrupt change. With a pen, I sketched, over the colored masses, shapes that would look right with the rose bushes. Their roundness begged to be relieved, so the delphiniums (the shorter Blue Fountains strain) went to one side and slightly behind, their spires looking like church steeples above a village of roses.

At the other extreme, I drew some low-spreading plants that would fan out in front like alluvial deposits washed down from the mountains of color behind them. Those in turn were interrupted by little clumps of vaguely grasslike plants, looking like sedges bursting above the flat surface of a pond.

At that point, I had a few actual plants in mind, but most of the sketches were just that. I was going to have to find the plants that would go in particular spots.

Several arrived on their own. In the mail came a new purple miniature rose from Sequoia Nursery / Moore Miniature Roses (2519 E. Noble Ave., Visalia 93277). It wasn’t to be introduced for another year or so and only had a number, but it ended up with the name ‘Sweet Chariot.’ Two more roses came home with my wife from the Huntington Rose Symposium: ‘Pernil Poulson,’ a coral pink, and ‘Lilac Dawn,’ a light lilac. In my scheme, those balanced the other roses.

Nursery shopping turned up more parts for the puzzle. Dianthus deltoides , a tiny dianthus that spread into a two-foot patch of dark green and ruby red, was one. To go behind that were taller dianthus, including ‘Pink Parfait’ and the white-flowered ‘Jealousy,’ each with gray foliage. More plants with gray foliage found their places: the white-flowered form of Lychnis , common culinary sage and woolly thyme. A pink sunrose came to rest nearby, and gray lamb’s ears settled in at the base of the roses. A rare little baby’s breath, Gypsophila repens rosea , which I have never again seen at nurseries, filled in some of the gaps with tiny pink flowers on a spreading plant that only grew a few inches tall.

To harmonize with the lilac rose, I found an Eastern perennial phlox, Phlox nivalis --the kind with prickly pin-like leaves--that was a light lavender. White came from Shasta daisies, iberis, a white agapanthus and a white bedding salvia. Purple and lavender came from Verbena rigida , columbines and several veronicas. The little tufts that were to spring from the low-growing plants turned out to be a pink zephyr lily, Zephyranthes grandiflora , and the more common white rain lily, Z . candida.

The planting is a mixture of common plants that one can depend on and uncommon plants, which add a little adventure to the undertaking. It is also a conglomeration of flowers that bloom at various times of the year. That has become an increasingly important goal in my garden--one not easily achieved.

Between April 1 and June 1, the bed is a blaze of color. In June, the agapanthus and the Shasta daisies bloom, bridging the gap into summer, while scattered flowers linger on the other plants. In July and August, the roses carry the show. Their importance in the garden is immeasurable because they bloom on and off all spring, summer and fall.

The zephyr lilies bloom in summer. Their presence right up front helps divert attention from the lack of flowers in back during that time. Z. grandiflora blooms in mid-summer, and Z. candida in late summer and fall. A second flowering of the delphiniums helps in late summer, but the bed definitely ebbs at that point. Veronicas, salvias and Verbena rigida were added for their summer flowers. Now the garden shifts from pink and blue in the spring to white and purple in the early summer. Midsummer is a hodgepodge, something I am still working on.

In the fall, the garden rebounds. The roses bloom in October and early November as bountifully as they did in April. And two perennials bloom then: gayfeather, or Liatris , with wand-like flowers of rosy-purple, and the pink flowers of Physostegia. The physostegia is worthy of special note. It spreads unobtrusively through the bed, flowering profusely a head above everything else. It is mixed in with the Shasta daisies, which makes me feel especially clever: The physostegia is nothing but roots when the Shasta daisies are in bloom, and the Shastas are finished and cut down when the physostegia is coming up to flower in the fall.

December and January find the garden at its most barren, though I like the wintery look. It is a reminder that there are seasons in Southern California, no matter how absurdly sunny and warm it happens to be. But even at this time things are blooming, including a lot of perky Oxalis ‘Grand Duchess’ and some early-flowering paperwhites, small-flowered daffodils.

In March--when the bed is surprisingly short on color, though chock-full of green, leafy growth--up come the fall-planted freesias, a few tulips and the Shirley poppies.

During the last four years, the plants have been more or less permanent. Some have been dug up and divided, to thin them out a little, to provide starts for friends or other parts of the garden, or simply for something to do. The delphiniums are replanted yearly, in February, as are the bulbs, in the fall. Many plants did wonderfully for a year or two, then failed--such as the dwarf baby’s breath--but they have departed at fortunate times, leaving the pleasant job of finding replacements. That keeps the bed interesting; there is always something new in there to watch.

The bed is only 14 feet long and six feet wide, and I’ve managed to grow an impressive array of plants in that small place. That demonstrates that it’s possible to grow a flower garden even in a limited area. The six-foot width, however, is a necessity. Any less and I would not be able to layer plants; the bed would simply be a row of plants with no foreground and no background, and much of the drama would be lost.

The edging that separates the bed from the sadly neglected lawn also is important. It was not there at first, and when the spreading plants in the forefront extended themselves too far, they got trimmed along with the grass by the gardener in a most unflattering fashion. Some sort of no-man’s-land was called for. The edging is made of broken pieces of the previous owner’s concrete edging; however, they are turned sideways, making them into a landing for the plants at least a foot wide all the way around. That gives the plants room to grow naturally, provided that I don’t plant something that spreads too far. Because the edging creates a ragged line, there are all sorts of little nooks and crannies to tuck the odd plant into, such as zephyr lilies or some rare little bulb.

The soil in this bed is magnificent, if such a thing can be said about dirt. Before planting, I added bags of soil amendment and thoroughly mixed it with the soil to a depth of almost 18 inches. Though it was a lot of work, it fluffed up the soil like a down quilt and made every chore down the line, from watering to weeding, a whole lot easier. The mounded plot helps shed excess water and improves all-important drainage.

Each time I divide something or replant, I add more soil amendment, usually Kellogg’s Topper or Gromulch. Those products are based on sewage sludge, which is full of nutrients for plants. The bed is watered about once a week--a bit more in summer, a lot less in winter. And every few months, before watering, I scatter a granular fertilizer.

Because there is so much variety in this bed, it’s a great place to putter. Something always needs snipping or trimming or weeding. It has no bug problems, and a resident toad keeps the snails in check. This bed is a pleasure to work in because it faces southeast, and the sun warms my back as I go about my chores. The southeast exposure also lets me work early in the morning, because the sun dries the dew first thing.

This is a good time to begin planning, purchasing and soil preparation to put together a bed like this, though because the roses are so important, I would wait until January to buy them, bare-root. Then start planting, finishing up in February or early March, which will get everything into the ground in time for April’s big bloom.

I’ve tried to figure out why this bed is so much better than the others in my garden. There are many contributing factors: the soil, the very sunny location, certainly the width of the bed, the protection of the house to the rear, the permanence of the roses, the simplicity of the color scheme, the presence of white and gray. Its success may even be due to its location in the front yard--where it has an audience, as do I.